In both experiments, the researchers isolated a single beryllium
ion (an atom with one of its two outer electrons stripped away)
in an electromagnetic trap, cooled it nearly to absolute zero
with lasers and left it resting almost without motion. The ion's
single remaining outer electron, which can have two internal quantum
states, is considered in superposition if the two states both
exist and are stacked upon one another. Until disturbed by an
outside force, there is an equal probability that the electron
is in either state, and thus it is considered to be in both states.

In the latest experiment, the NIST team separated the two states
over a range of distances from almost overlapping to around 10
atomic widths apart. As they increased the distance between the
two states, the environmental effects on the superposition increased
exponentially, causing the separated ion to quickly collapse back
into a single entity.

Presidential Initiative Seeks Funds to Squash Hackers

Monday morning, Feb. 7,
2000. Web surfers hoping to use the Yahoo browser to search for
information, check the latest news or shop for the upcoming Valentine's
Day holiday, got a rude surprise. One of the world's best-protected
web sites had been shut down by hackers-and would stay offline
for three hours.

Over the following three days, seven of the Internet's top sites
fell prey to "denial of service" attacks where the target is flooded
with an overwhelming number of messages. The large scale-Yahoo
claimed it was at times trying to process a gigabyte per second-made
the attacks almost unstoppable. Worse yet, the use of multiple
computers and falsified Internet return addresses hid the attackers
well.

Ironically, the cyberterrorist activities began the day that
President Clinton submitted his proposed fiscal year 2001 federal
budget to Congress. Within that budget
is a $60 million initiative for the National Institute of Standards
and Technology to protect the nation's critical information infrastructure
by: (1) establishing an institute to provide grants for research
and technology development to protect critical infrastructures
from attack or other failures ($50 million); (2) developing new
measurements, standards, test methods and guidelines to better
protect IT elements ($5 million); and (3) creating and fielding
a team of computer security experts to help federal agencies identify
and fix existing vulnerabilities in information systems and prepare
for future IT security threats ($5 million).

On Balance, MEASUREnet.gov May Be Best New Thing on the Internet

Next time you place your
apples on a grocery scale, stop and thank your state's weights
and measures laboratory and the National
Institute of Standards and Technology. You can be sure those
scales, as well as the scales used to package foods and manufacture
pharmaceuticals, are correct due to the efforts of the NIST
Office of Weights and Measures and the National Conference
on Weights and Measures, which represents the state weights and
measures labs.

A new effort at NIST could further improve accuracy in our nation's
system of weights and measures by leveraging the capabilities
of the Internet. MEASUREnet. gov will link NIST to local government
weights and measures laboratories in 10 states and Puerto Rico.
It eventually could be expanded to all U.S. states and territories.

MEASUREnet.gov is an interactive Internet-video conferencing
system intended to support training and collaborative work between
NIST and state weights and measures laboratories. MEASUREnet.gov
will enable NIST to provide technical assistance and training
more frequently and efficiently and to develop standards in partnership
with states. U.S. industry relies on the state weights and measures
laboratories to calibrate standards for a variety of processes
from manufacturing pharmaceuticals to filling cereal boxes. State
laboratories provide more than 340,000 NIST-traceable calibrations
to more than 19,400 customers each year. Ninety percent of those
calibrations are for mass measurements.

Small Business

For California Confectionery, Life Is Sweet Once More

Like the "I Love Lucy"
episode where candy came down the conveyor belt faster than Lucy
could package it, Marich Confectionery of Hollister, Calif., was
having trouble keeping up with demand. Each year, the 37-employee
company produces and ships nearly 4 million pounds of gourmet
candies worldwide. But shipping on time was a major problem. The
candy maker's efficiency also suffered from low employee morale,
maintaining a sufficient supply of raw materials and losing control
of finished products.

Marich contacted Manex,
the northern California center affiliated with the NIST Manufacturing
Extension Partnership, for help. Working with company executives
and employees, Manex experts recommended a process improvement
plan and a new manufacturing layout. Manex also showed the company
how to use flow charts for scheduling, material planning and purchasing,
and controlling inventory. As a result, shipments are made on
time and in full, and employee morale and productivity has improved.

Small manufacturers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia
and Puerto Rico can reach their local NIST MEP affiliate by calling
(800) MEP-4MFG (637-4634), or through the World Wide Web at www.mep.nist.gov.

If It's Warm Outside, It's Not Midweek

While researching techniques
for extracting information from noisy electromagnetic signals,
Kevin Coakley, a statistician at the Boulder, Colo., laboratories
of the National Institute of Standards
and Technology, noticed a surprising phenomenon relevant to
meteorology as well as metrology.

To illustrate his statistical methods, Coakley analyzed the daily
maximum temperature data collected at the San Francisco International
Airport from 1949 to 1994. For each of the 52 weeks in each year,
he recorded the day on which the weekly maximum temperature occurred.
He found that the weekly maximum temperature occurs more frequently
on the first (or last) day of the week compared to a day in the
middle of the week. Even if the week is redefined to begin on
Wednesday and end on Tuesday, the conclusion is the same.

Coakley argues that the phenomenon happens because temperature
readings follow random upward or downward trends over short intervals
of time. For instance, if it's warmer than average today, it probably
will be warmer than average tomorrow. More generally, this apparent
paradox can occur in any measurement process for which the random
noise in the results is positively correlated (more alike than
unalike) from one measurement to the next.

New Registry Helps Developers Check IDs at the Door

Imagine your name is John
Smith and you're at a party where everyone attending has that
name. No one could get anyone's attention, conversations would
be difficult and there would be no obvious winner for the door
prize drawing. In other words, total confusion.

For years, software and web site developers have faced a John
Smith dilemma of their own. Choosing identifiers-things that distinguish
variables, filename extensions (such as .wpd for "Word Perfect
document"), system call names, port numbers and the like in programming
languages-wasn't as simple as it might seem. Developers could
not easily determine if their identifier was a duplication of
or in conflict with one already in use. The uncertainty meant
a dangerous potential for software or web sites to run ineffectively
or crash.

To solve the problem, the National
Institute of Standards and Technology has established the
NIST Identifier Collaboration Service, a free, online registry
for identifiers. Users can browse the database for identifiers,
determine that theirs is original and then add it to the repository.
An added benefit of the NICS is that other developers can review
the new identifier and comment on possible conflicts.

If the NICS becomes widely used, its creators feel that it will
reduce software and web page development time significantly, lower
development costs and increase reliability. Interested parties
can get more information on the World Wide Web at http://pitch.nist.gov/nics.

In 1950, NIST performed some 250,000 tests and calibrations for
industry and other federal agencies. The items evaluated included
9 million barrels of cement; 4 million light bulbs; 15,318 thermometers;
2,000 radium therapy preparations; 615 automotive spark plugs;
and 266 beer meters (the devices that measure the total volume
of beer produced by a brewery).

In 1949, Congress approved funds for "the construction and equipment
of a radio laboratory building for the National Bureau of Standards."
The Boulder, Colo., Chamber of Commerce raised $90,000 during
the following year, purchased a 217-acre site within the city
and sold it to the government for $1. The complex is now known
as the NIST Boulder Laboratories.

In the mid-1960s, NIST used a sled-and-track device at Holloman
Air Force Base, N.M., to test the effectiveness of automobile
belt and shoulder harnesses on anthropomorphic dummies and human
volunteers. Results from the tests, conducted for the Department
of Transportation, were cited as justification for mandating shoulder
restraints in U.S. motor vehicles.